Song of Songs

The Song of Songs (Song of Solomon, Canticles) is a sequence of Hebrew love poems in which a woman and a man speak of desire, search, separation and reunion, among vineyards, gardens, mountains and city streets. The woman's voice opens and closes it and speaks most of its lines. It names Solomon in its heading and in several scenes, never mentions covenant or law, and may name God only once, in a disputed word in 8:6. For most of its history Jews read it as the love of God and Israel and Christians as the love of Christ and the church or the soul; modern readers also study it as ancient love poetry beside the love songs of Egypt. The site keeps all of these layers distinct: the poem, its ancient world, and its Jewish and Christian afterlives.

Lessons

1. 1Song of Songs 1: Your Love Is Better Than WineSong of Songs 1 · The title calls the book "the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's" (1:1). Then, without introduction, a woman speaks: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine" (v. 2). She longs to be drawn after him; "the king hath brought me into his chambers" (v. 4). She tells the daughters of Jerusalem she is "black, but comely" (or "dark and lovely"), darkened by the sun while her brothers made her keep the vineyards (vv. 5–6). She asks where her beloved pastures his flock (v. 7) and receives an answer (v. 8). A man praises her as a mare among Pharaoh's chariots (vv. 9–11); she answers with myrrh, henna and the vineyards of En-gedi (vv. 12–14); the two exchange praise and describe a house of cedar beams (vv. 15–17).
2. 2Song of Songs 2: The Voice of My BelovedSong of Songs 2 · The woman calls herself "the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys" (2:1); he answers, "As the lily among thorns, so is my love" (v. 2); she replies that he is like an apple tree among the trees of the wood (v. 3). He brings her to the "banqueting house" (literally "house of wine"); she is faint with love; she charges the daughters of Jerusalem "by the roes, and by the hinds of the field" not to stir up love until it pleases (vv. 4–7). Her beloved comes leaping over the hills and calls her out: "the winter is past… the time of the singing of birds is come" (vv. 8–13). He longs to see her face and hear her voice (v. 14); someone calls, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines" (v. 15). She declares, "My beloved is mine, and I am his" (v. 16), and sends him off until day breaks (v. 17).
3. 3Song of Songs 3: The Night Search and the Royal ProcessionSong of Songs 3 · By night on her bed she seeks "him whom my soul loveth" and does not find him; she rises, goes about the city, asks the watchmen, and just past them finds him and brings him to her mother's house (3:1–4). The refrain returns (v. 5). Then a new scene: something comes up from the wilderness "like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense" (v. 6): Solomon's litter, guarded by sixty mighty men (vv. 7–8), made of cedar of Lebanon, silver, gold and purple, "paved with love" by the daughters of Jerusalem (vv. 9–10). The daughters of Zion are called to see King Solomon wearing the crown his mother gave him "in the day of his espousals" (v. 11).
4. 4Song of Songs 4: A Garden EnclosedSong of Songs 4 · The man praises the woman from head to breast in a sequence of images: dove's eyes behind her veil, hair like goats streaming down Gilead, teeth like shorn ewes, lips like scarlet thread, temples like pomegranate halves, a neck like David's tower hung with shields, breasts like twin fawns; "thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee" (4:1–7). He calls her from Lebanon, Amana, Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions (v. 8). She has "ravished" his heart with one glance (v. 9); her love is better than wine, her lips drip honey (vv. 10–11). She is "a garden inclosed… a spring shut up, a fountain sealed," an orchard of pomegranates and every spice (vv. 12–15). She answers: "Awake, O north wind… Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits" (v. 16).
5. 5Song of Songs 5: I Sleep, but My Heart WakethSong of Songs 5 · The man answers her invitation: "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse"; someone says, "eat, O friends; drink" (5:1). Then a night scene: "I sleep, but my heart waketh"; her beloved knocks, wet with dew; she hesitates; when she opens, myrrh dripping from her hands on the lock, he is gone (vv. 2–6). The watchmen find her, strike her, wound her and take her cloak (v. 7). She charges the daughters of Jerusalem to tell him she is lovesick (v. 8). They ask what makes her beloved better than others (v. 9). She answers with a head-to-foot praise of him (vv. 10–16): "This is my beloved, and this is my friend."
6. 6Song of Songs 6: Beautiful as Tirzah, Terrible as an ArmySong of Songs 6 · The daughters ask where her beloved has gone; she knows: "My beloved is gone down into his garden… I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine" (6:1–3). He praises her: "beautiful… as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners"; her eyes overwhelm him; he repeats the praise of hair, teeth and temples from chapter 4 (vv. 4–7). "There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one"; even queens praise her: "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning?" (vv. 8–10). Someone goes down to the nut orchard to see the blossoms, and then a famously obscure line about "the chariots of Amminadib" (vv. 11–12). "Return, return, O Shulamite… What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies" (v. 13; Hebrew 7:1).
7. 7Song of Songs 7: I Am My Beloved'sSong of Songs 7 (Hebrew 7:2–14) · In English numbering: the man praises the woman from her sandaled feet upward: thighs like jewels, navel like a bowl of wine, belly like a heap of wheat set about with lilies, breasts like twin fawns, neck like an ivory tower, eyes like the pools of Heshbon, nose like the tower of Lebanon facing Damascus, head like Carmel, hair like purple in which a king is held captive (7:1–5). She is like a palm tree; he will climb it and take hold of its fruit (vv. 6–9). She answers: "I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me" (v. 10), and invites him into the fields and villages, to the vineyards, where "the mandrakes give a smell" and "I will give thee my loves" (vv. 11–13).
8. 8Song of Songs 8: Love Is Strong as DeathSong of Songs 8 · She wishes he were like a brother so she could kiss him in public without scorn, and bring him to her mother's house (8:1–2); the embrace and the refrain return (vv. 3–4). "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?"; she awakened him under the apple tree where his mother bore him (v. 5). Then the summit of the book: "Set me as a seal upon thine heart… for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love… if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned" (vv. 6–7). Brothers discuss their little sister; she answers that she is a wall and has found peace (vv. 8–10). Solomon's vineyard at Baal-hamon is let out for a thousand pieces of silver; "my vineyard, which is mine, is before me" (vv. 11–12). The book ends: "Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices" (vv. 13–14).
9. 9Investigation: Who Wrote the Song?Song of Songs 1:1, 5; 3:7–11; 8:11–12; 1 Kings 4:32 · The heading reads "the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's," and Solomon is named six more times. Jewish and Christian tradition long held that Solomon wrote it. The Hebrew phrase can also mean "for" or "about" Solomon; the language has late features; the voice that dominates the poem is a woman's. This investigation separates the heading, the royal imagery, the date of the language, and the question of a woman's authorship.
10. 10Investigation: One Drama or Many Songs?Song of Songs 1–8 · Is the Song a single story with a plot (meeting, courtship, wedding, union), a drama with a hero and a rival, songs from a wedding week, or a collection of separate love poems? Each theory has been influential. The Hebrew gives no speaker names, scene markers or narrator; refrains and repeated images suggest design; abrupt shifts suggest collection.
11. 11Investigation: The Egyptian Love SongsSong of Songs 1–8; Egyptian New Kingdom love songs · Egypt's New Kingdom (c. 1300–1100 BC) has left the closest ancient parallels to the Song: love songs on papyri and pottery from Thebes and the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina. Lovers call each other "sister" and "brother," speak in alternating voices, fall sick with love, meet in gardens and compare each other to flowers, perfume and wine. This investigation describes the manuscripts and what the parallels can and cannot show.
12. 12Investigation: The Garden and Its FragrancesSong of Songs 1:12–14; 2:1–5; 4:12–5:1; 6:2, 11; 7:13 · The Song names more plants and aromatics than any other book of the Bible: some native (pomegranate, fig, vine, palm, henna, lily), some imported from Arabia, Africa and India (myrrh, frankincense, nard, cinnamon, calamus, aloes-wood, saffron). This investigation identifies what can be identified, says which names are uncertain, and explains the trade behind the luxury.
13. 13Investigation: The Shulammite, Shunem and SolomonSong of Songs 6:13 (Hebrew 7:1); 1 Kings 1:1–4; 2:13–25; 2 Kings 4:8 · The woman is called "the Shulammite" once (6:13; Hebrew 7:1), twice in the same verse. The word may mean a woman of Shunem, a feminine form matching Solomon's name, or "the perfect (peaceful) one." This investigation weighs the options and explains why the site marks Shunem on the map only as a disputed association.
14. 14Investigation: The Daughters of Jerusalem and the WatchmenSong of Songs 1:5; 2:7; 3:1–5; 5:2–8; 8:1 · The woman speaks to a group of women, "the daughters of Jerusalem," throughout the Song, and twice goes into the city at night to search for her beloved. The first time the watchmen pass her by; the second time they beat her and take her cloak. This investigation looks at public and private space for women, the watchmen, and how to read the violent scene honestly.
15. 15Investigation: Geography as PoetrySong of Songs 1:5, 14; 2:1; 4:1, 8, 15; 6:4–5; 7:4–5; 8:11 · The Song draws its images from a real map: an oasis by the Dead Sea, the snowy northern mountains, the goat-covered hills of Gilead, two royal cities, a green ridge by the sea, the pools of a Transjordanian town, and the Aramean capital. Some names are secure, some regional, some unknown. This investigation lists them and how the site's Atlas marks them.
16. 16Investigation: Love Stronger Than DeathSong of Songs 8:6–7; Psalm 118:5; Jeremiah 2:31; Habakkuk 3:5 · "Set me as a seal upon thine heart… for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame (shalhevetyah). Many waters cannot quench love." These verses are the Song's summit. They also contain its most debated word: shalhevetyah, which may be "a flame of Yah (the LORD)" or simply "a mighty flame." This investigation examines the grammar, the manuscripts, the translations and the imagery of death, Sheol, flame and flood.
17. 17Investigation: The Song at QumranSong of Songs 1–8; 4Q106, 4Q107, 4Q108, 6Q6 · Four manuscripts of the Song were found at Qumran: three in Cave 4 (4Q106–108) and one in Cave 6 (6Q6). They are the oldest copies of the book, from around the turn of the eras. Two of them seem to lack whole passages that the Masoretic Text has, raising the question whether they are abbreviated texts or witnesses to a different edition. (Note: 4Q109 is Ecclesiastes, not the Song.)
18. 18Investigation: The Greek Song and Its TranslatorsSong of Songs 1:2, 5; 2:1, 7, 17; 3:10; 4:1, 8; 6:4, 12; 7:9–10; 8:5–7, 11 · The Greek Song (Asma asmaton) is a close, word-for-word translation. Its differences from the Masoretic Text are usually differences of reading the same consonants ("your breasts" for "your love"), of translating names as words (Tirzah as "good pleasure"), or of interpretation. Later Greek versions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) survive in fragments. This investigation lists the main differences found in the library's Greek and explains what kind each is.
19. 19Investigation: Why Is Love Poetry in Scripture?Song of Songs 1–8; Mishnah Yadayim 3:5; Tosefta Sanhedrin 12:10 · The Song never mentions covenant, law, Israel's history or (except perhaps in 8:6) God. Yet it is in the Jewish and Christian Bibles. The Mishnah records a debate about whether it "defiles the hands" (is holy Scripture) and Rabbi Akiva's famous defense: "all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies." Did the Song enter Scripture because it was read allegorically, or was it read allegorically because it was Scripture? Scholars disagree.
20. 20Investigation: The Song's AfterlifeSong of Songs 1–8 · For most of its history the Song has been read as a song of divine love: God and Israel in Judaism; Christ and the church, or Christ and the soul, in Christianity. This investigation sets the main readers in order, with dates, so that later interpretations are not projected back onto the ancient poem and the poem is not stripped of its long religious life.

How Song of Songs came to us

Who wrote it, how it was copied, and how it reached the Bible you hold. These lessons follow the book through history.

1. ★How Song of Songs Came to UsThe Song grew from a world of love songs shared across the ancient Near East; it was shaped into a Hebrew poetic sequence under Solomon's name (date debated, most likely in its present form during the Persian or early Hellenistic period); it was copied at Qumran (four manuscripts), translated literally into Greek, then into Latin, Syriac and Aramaic; defended as holy by Rabbi Akiva; read as divine love by Jews and Christians for most of its history; preserved by the Masoretes; and studied today as both poetry and Scripture.
2. 6The SeptuagintJews in Egypt translated their Scriptures into Greek, creating the Bible of the early church and of the New Testament writers.
3. 7The Dead Sea ScrollsA shepherd's discovery in 1947 gave us Bible manuscripts a thousand years older than any known before, and showed how faithfully the text was kept.
4. 13Scribes, Jerome, and the MasoretesJerome gave the West its Latin Bible; Jewish scholars called the Masoretes guarded the Hebrew text letter by letter.

Journey of a Passage

• ¶Song of Songs 1:1: "The song of songs, which is Solomon's"The heading: shir ha-shirim asher li-Shlomo. A superlative ("the finest song") and a link to Solomon that can mean by, for, about or belonging to him. The library's Greek keeps the title in its 1:1 together with the first line of the poem; the Vulgate prints the title outside the numbered verses. The Cave 6 manuscript 6Q6 is reported to preserve the opening verses.
• ¶Song of Songs 1:2–4: "Thy love is better than wine": love, or breasts?The poem's first line in the Masoretic Text: "your love (dodekha) is better than wine," spoken by the woman to the man. The library's Greek and the Vulgate read the same consonants as "your breasts" (daddayikh): "tes mamelles," "ubera tua." The difference is in the vowels, and it changes who is speaking to whom.
• ¶Song of Songs 1:5–6: "Black but comely" or "black and beautiful"?"I am black ve- comely." The Hebrew conjunction ve- can be "and" or "but"; the library's Greek has "and," the Vulgate and KJV "but." The woman explains her darkness by the sun and her brothers' orders to work in the vineyards; Kedar's black tents and Solomon's curtains are the images.
• ¶Song of Songs 1:9–11: A mare among Pharaoh's chariots"I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots." The Hebrew susati is "my mare" (singular). Chariot teams were stallions; a mare among them would cause a commotion. The compliment is about her effect and adornment, not her shape. The witnesses agree.
• ¶Song of Songs 2:1–3: The "rose of Sharon" and the lily"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys": the woman speaks of herself (the next verse answers her with a feminine address). The flower names are uncertain: the library's Greek and the Vulgate translate "Sharon" as "the plain" or "the field" ("flower of the field"). The "apple tree" of v. 3 is also unidentified.
• ¶Song of Songs 2:4–7: The banner of love and the oath "by the gazelles"The house of wine, the banner of love, the lovesick woman, the embrace, and the refrain: "I adjure you… by the gazelles (tseva'ot) and the hinds of the field (ayelot ha-sadeh): do not awaken love until it pleases." The animal names sound like divine titles (Tseva'ot, "hosts"; El Shaddai); the library's Greek translates "by the powers and the forces of the field."
• ¶Song of Songs 2:15–17: Little foxes, mutual belonging and the mountains of Bether"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines" (v. 15); "My beloved is mine, and I am his" (v. 16); "be thou like a roe… upon the mountains of Bether" (v. 17). The speaker of v. 15 is unmarked. "Bether" is kept as a name by the Vulgate, translated "ravines" by the library's Greek.
• ¶Song of Songs 3:1–5: The night search: "him whom my soul loveth"On her bed at night she seeks the one her soul loves, rises, searches the city, questions the watchmen, finds him and brings him to her mother's house. Four times she says "him whom my soul loveth." The witnesses agree. 4Q106 is reported to preserve parts of 3:4–5.
• ¶Song of Songs 3:6–11: Solomon's litter: appiryon and "paved with love"A procession from the wilderness: smoke, myrrh, frankincense; Solomon's couch guarded by sixty warriors; an appiryon of Lebanon wood with silver posts, gold back, purple seat, and an interior "inlaid with love from the daughters of Jerusalem" (v. 10); the king crowned on his wedding day. The library's Greek reads v. 10 as "paved with stones, love from the daughters of Jerusalem."
• ¶Song of Songs 4:1–7: Praise from eyes to breasts: veil, goats, towers, fawnsThe first praise poem (wasf): doves' eyes behind her tsammah (veil, or "locks" in the KJV), hair like goats on Gilead, teeth like shorn ewes, lips like scarlet thread, temples like pomegranate, neck like David's tower, breasts like twin fawns. The library's Greek and the Vulgate render tsammah as "what is hidden within." 4Q106 is reported to preserve parts of 4:1–7.
• ¶Song of Songs 4:8: Lebanon, Amana, Senir and Hermon"Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse… look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards." Lebanon and Hermon are secure; Senir is Hermon's Amorite name (Deuteronomy 3:9); Amana is uncertain. The library's Greek reads Amana as a word ("faith," amanah); the Vulgate reads tashuri ("look") as "you will be crowned." 4Q106 is reported to lack this verse (its text passes from 4:7 to 6:11).
• ¶Song of Songs 4:12–5:1: The garden enclosed and the invitation"A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed" (4:12); an orchard (pardes) of pomegranates and every spice (vv. 13–15); then her voice: "Let my beloved come into his garden" (v. 16); and his: "I am come into my garden" (5:1). Where her words end and his begin is debated; the library's Greek and the Vulgate put "let my beloved come into his garden" at the start of their 5:1.
• ¶Song of Songs 5:2–8: "I sleep, but my heart waketh": the knock and the watchmenShe sleeps, her heart awake; her beloved knocks, wet with dew; she hesitates; she opens, her hands dripping myrrh on the lock; he has gone. She searches; the watchmen strike her, wound her and take her cloak (v. 7). The witnesses agree on the violence; none softens it.
• ¶Song of Songs 5:10–16: "This is my beloved, and this is my friend"The woman's praise of the man, the only praise poem of a male body in the Song: white and ruddy, head of gold, black curls, dove eyes, spice-bed cheeks, lily lips dripping myrrh, arms of gold set with tarshish, body of ivory with sappir, legs of alabaster on gold bases, appearance like Lebanon. The gem names differ across the witnesses ("beryl," "hyacinths," "sapphires").
• ¶Song of Songs 6:4–10: Beautiful as Tirzah, terrible as an army with banners"Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners." Tirzah was the early capital of the northern kingdom; the library's Greek ("good pleasure") and the Vulgate ("sweet") translate the name by its meaning. Sixty queens, eighty concubines, but "my dove… is but one"; the queens praise her: "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning?"
• ¶Song of Songs 6:11–12: The chariots of Ammi-nadibOne of the most obscure verses in the Bible: "Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib." The Masoretic Text writes two words, ammi-nadiv ("my people, noble" or "my noble kinsman"); the library's Greek and the Vulgate read one name, Aminadab. Modern versions differ widely, and the verse should stay visibly uncertain. 4Q106 is reported to resume at 6:11.
• ¶Song of Songs 6:13 (Hebrew 7:1): "Return, O Shulamite": a chapter boundary and a name"Return, return, O Shulamite… What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies." Hebrew Bibles number this verse 7:1; the Greek and Latin split it, putting "What will ye see in the Shulamite?" at the start of their 7:1. The name occurs only here; its meaning (woman of Shunem? Solomon's counterpart? "the perfect one"?) is debated. Mechollat ha-machanayim may be "the dance of the two camps" or "of Mahanaim."
• ¶Song of Songs 7:1–9 (Hebrew 7:2–10): From feet to hair: Heshbon, Damascus, Carmel and the palmPraise rising from her sandaled feet to her hair; real places as images (the pools of Heshbon, the tower of Lebanon facing Damascus, Carmel); the palm tree and its clusters; and at the end of v. 9 the woman's voice breaking in. The last phrase of v. 9 differs: Hebrew "gliding over the lips of sleepers"; the library's Greek "pleasing to my teeth and my lips."
• ¶Song of Songs 7:10–13 (Hebrew 7:11–14): "His desire is toward me": teshuqah and the mandrakes"I am my beloved's, and his desire (teshuqah) is toward me." Teshuqah occurs only here and in Genesis 3:16 and 4:7. In Genesis 3:16 the woman's desire is for her husband who rules over her; here the man's desire is for her, with no ruling. Then her invitation to the fields, vineyards and mandrakes. The library's Greek and the Vulgate render teshuqah "turning" (epistrophe, conversio).
• ¶Song of Songs 8:1–4: "O that thou wert as my brother": public loveShe wishes he were like a brother, so she could kiss him in the street without being despised, and bring him to her mother's house. The embrace and the refrain return, this time without the gazelles. The witnesses agree.
• ¶Song of Songs 8:5–7: "Love is strong as death": the seal and shalhevetyahThe summit of the Song: "Set me as a seal upon thine heart… for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame (shalhevetyah). Many waters cannot quench love." Shalhevetyah may be "a flame of Yah (the LORD)" or a superlative, "a mighty flame"; the library's Greek and the Vulgate have no divine name; the KJV took the superlative. The word may also have been written as two words in one medieval Masoretic tradition (reported).
• ¶Song of Songs 8:8–10: The little sister: wall or door?"We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts": the brothers plan for the day she is "spoken for": if a wall, silver battlements; if a door, cedar boards. She answers: "I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favour (shalom)." The witnesses agree; Giguet's French inserts "(l'épouse)" as a speaker label.
• ¶Song of Songs 8:11–12: Solomon's vineyard at Baal-hamon"Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, which is mine, is before me." The Vulgate translates both names ("the peaceful one had a vineyard in that which has peoples"); Baal-hamon is otherwise unknown.
• ¶Song of Songs 8:13–14: The open ending: "Make haste, my beloved""Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices." The book ends not with a wedding or a summary but with desire in motion, echoing 2:14 and 2:17.